Sunday, October 3, 2010

Home Improvement

We moved in to our new house one year ago. Sometimes it feels like there is a never-ending list of things to do, but when we look back on what we've done so far, I think it looks pretty good. It's starting to feel like our house now.

Here are a few photos to show the progress we've made...

I wish I was better at documenting all the things we've changed about the house, but for this post, I'll show the two major projects we've been working on. We started with the kitchen and family room.

When we first moved in, Matt took one look at the cabinets over the stove and decided they had to go. He couldn't wait to rip them out. They blocked off the living room and made the space seem smaller. Here is the view of the kitchen before, with the yellow walls, brown cabinets, and fluorescent lights.

Matt with the dreaded cabinets:

After we tore out the cabinets, we had to repair the ceiling and replace the fluorescent lights. Matt, Clay, Critter, and my Dad put in new drywall on the ceiling and added new insulation.

This picture is a little blurry, but shows the lights going in, the cabinets painted white, and also some of the paint samples we were trying out above the sink.

And finally, the AFTER! Here is how our kitchen looks now. Isn't it so much better?

And now, here is some of the work we have done on the outside of the house. The two major problems we faced included the peeling, yellow paint and the warped, water-damaged plywood that had been used as siding on the upper parts of the exterior. We could never have done this project without my dad, who has helped us from beginning to end with his construction expertise and skills. Thank you, Dad! You are the best!

Replacing the siding on the back

New siding, primed and ready to paint.

Painted! Now we are working on the trim... final after pictures should be coming soon!

Replacing the old siding by our patio.

A little surprise bird nest

Notice how gross the end of the beam looks. We don't know what was growing on there! Matt and my dad cut it off to make it even with the rest of the house.

Looking better already...

Painting with Clay, Critter, Heather, and both of our dads!

The painting crew

Now the patio area is almost finished! Next step will be a new slider door.

The sides of the house...

Cutting new siding

Starting to put up the new siding

Testing paint colors

Using the sprayer!

Old house color

New house color!

We aren't done yet... we still need to do some touch-ups, paint the trim, and choose a front door color. It's getting there, though! We couldn't have done any of this without the help of Matt's awesome friends and both of our dads. Hopefully soon I'll be able to post pictures of the finished product.